Ecce Pecunia! —

Internet-famous octogenerian Ecce Homo “restorer” seeks royalties

Who knew Internet notoriety would bring in so much money?

When Spanish octogenarian Cecilia Giménez botched the restoration of a famous, century-old mural by painter Elías García Martínez, she hardly expected the "restored" image (which at present looks sort of like a teddy bear, or a very hairy monkey) to become a meme that would blow up on reddit, 4Chan, and Twitter. But ever since late August, Ecce Homo has become a tourist attraction, bringing scores of Internet jokers to the Santuario de Misericordia Church in Borja, Spain. These tourists are bringing all of their euros, and now Giménez, who earlier claimed she was having anxiety attacks from allthe press coverage, wants a cut.

According to the northern Spain newspaper El Correo cited by TechDirt (which was tipped off by Twitter user @sinkdeep), tourists started flocking to the church, but weren't leaving any donations. So to prevent the disruptive hordes from overtaking the church, the Santi Spiritus Hospital Foundation, which owns the sanctuary, started charging a fee to visitors wanting to see Ecce Mono, or Behold the Monkey as it's now jokingly dubbed. In just 4 days, the Foundation made €2,000, (or about $2,600).

El Correo says this has angered Giménez and her family, and they've sought lawyers to win royalties for her work, which epically ruined a prized fresco of Jesus Christ. It seems the Santuario de Misericordia Church intends to defend its earnings as well, and has retained lawyers. Luckily, though, Giménez is not charging the millions of Internet users who have shared and spoofed her painting all over the world with copyright abuse.

Meanwhile, Borja, Spain is dealing with being the butt of an international joke. While "this influx of 'pilgrims'" originally bothered the mayor of the town, the tourism euros are undoubtedly welcomed by many. El Correo notes that the European airline Ryanair "has put on sale a flight from €12 to travel to Zaragoza from any of the airports where it operates to visit the 'creative restoration.'" But whether the original author of the spin-off Ecco Mono will get any money from the mounting entry fees, or whether the church will be reimbursed for the dramatic ruining of a work of art, is still unclear.

The one thing I cant find is if she had permission from the church to attempt to restore the painting. If she didn't then she gets nothing and actually could be liable for destruction of the artwork. If she did, she could still be liable for destruction of the artwork. I see this going very well for the church.

What boggles my mind is why someone with about as much artistic talent as I have (which is to say none whatsoever) would get it into their head that they should be the one to do an art restoration project.

She should have organised a fund-raiser to pay for the job to be done properly... because even if she failed as spectacularly at that task, at least the mural wouldn't have been any worse off.

Last I read they were talking about charging her with destruction of private property. Fuck her and her belief that deserve royalties for completely destroying a work of art.

Why should someone else profit off her efforts though?

My uneducated art assessment guess is that the money made from people wanting to view the "retouched" fresco are going to quick drop off as people move on to the next shiny object, and nowhere near match the amount of depreciation that she caused in the actual value of it.

I mean, if I manage to spectacularly crash my car into the roof of your house, causing $30,000 in damages, you have the idea to charge people money to see such a sight, and get $3,000 in ticket sales, it's not like it makes much sense for me to demand part of that $3,000 for helping generate that income for you, since you're still about $27k underwater from where you started before I flung my car into your roof.

Good God Almighty! The sanctuary will need every cent they can manage to collect and then a whole lot more in any serious effort to "restore" what she destroyed! I'd like to think she was goaded into this by her greedy heirs otherwise, this is the second confirmation she's lost her blasted mind... the first being when she picked up the paintbrush!

Doesn't this just encourage the multitudes of fuckups who happened to make memes despite their own ineptitude? Seriously, I'm all about making lemon-aid out of lemons, but fucktards are just that.......

If this sanctuary was actually foolish enough to hire an octogenarian with no professional experience to perform a delicate, detailed, time-consuming restoration, the judgment crosses my mind that perhaps they got exactly what they didn't pay for.

The one thing I cant find is if she had permission from the church to attempt to restore the painting. If she didn't then she gets nothing and actually could be liable for destruction of the artwork. If she did, she could still be liable for destruction of the artwork. I see this going very well for the church.

According to her own words in a New York Times article, the priest of the parish supposedly knew she was going to "restore" the painting, but that's her word. I haven't seen any confirmation of that, and I can't imagine it's true if the town is considering taking legal action against her for vandalism.

I was under the impression that this painting was not famous by any stretch until it was screwed up.

You'd be right to think that. Jonathan James, writing in the Guardian (23 Aug 12): "Thanks to an inadvertent iconoclast, a second-rate fresco is now a 'masterpiece' . Turn her loose on artists that deserve attention."

Last I read they were talking about charging her with destruction of private property. Fuck her and her belief that deserve royalties for completely destroying a work of art.

Why should someone else profit off her efforts though?

You know what? You're right.

I'm going to go through my records and track down everyone that I built a deck for and see if they still live at that same house. If not, I'll demand that they pay me (again), because the deck surely increased the property value. They shouldn't have profited off of my efforts (that they paid for)!

I suspect they were being nice and didn't want to charge an 80 year old with vandalism, and this is an example of no good deed going unpunished. If her suit forced the Church into charging her with a crime, I wonder how her lawyers would react.

I hate when people value art just by how popular the piece or its creator are.

It was a beautiful fresco and it is purely by chance that the church is now making some money out from it. The lady should count herself lucky she didn't get charged before... but she had to push the boundaries of her idiocy.

Still, maybe the issue was that no one told her she was restoring a classic painting. She should stick to restoring abstract paintings from now on. :-P

Still, maybe the issue was that no one told her she was restoring a classic painting. She should stick to restoring abstract paintings from now on. :-P

No one knew she was working on it! She did it on her own.

Actually, her sister says she had touched up the cloak every once in a while for years, but she really got into it this time. And her neighbors knew her as being good at painting landscape murals, so she probably felt like she had the skill to do it. She might've been okay restoring a landscape painting.

The one thing I cant find is if she had permission from the church to attempt to restore the painting. If she didn't then she gets nothing and actually could be liable for destruction of the artwork. If she did, she could still be liable for destruction of the artwork. I see this going very well for the church.

IIRC, she volunteered, and the church gave their consent. At the time, they were being really graceful about the whole matter until the internet fell on their head. Now they're just embarassed.

As far as royalties are concerned, it's a thorny issue. On one hand, she volunteered, which implies an act undertaken without expectation of compensation. On the other, the fact that she volunteered means that the church also implies that it has no intention of profiting from her work. In the end, I think they should just make her an offer on it. This doesn't look like a lot of money (though I don't know how well the Spanish economy is doing), and standard royalty rates would be practically lunch money by US standards.